Winston-Salem Paying Wrongfully Convicted Inmate $1.6M

Winston-Salem, N.C. — The city of Winston-Salem will pay more than $1.6 million to a wrongfully convicted inmate cleared by DNA evidence.

The City Council announced the settlement Monday night at its regularly scheduled meeting.

Darryl Hunt spent 18 years in prison for the 1984 stabbing death of Deborah Sykes, a Winston-Salem woman who was raped and killed while walking to work downtown.

He was released in 2003, and Gov. Mike Easley pardoned him in 2004 after DNA testing identified another man, Willard Brown, in the case.

Hunt would receive about $90,000 for each year he spent in prison.

The state has paid Hunt $358,545 in restitution for being wrongfully jailed. By law, Hunt had three years to file a lawsuit after being exonerated.

Last week, Mayor Allen Joines said Hunt had settled with the city rather than file a civil rights lawsuit. The city had initially offered $500,000. Hunt's attorneys had asked for $2.6 million.

Hunt now lives in Winston-Salem and is part of a nonprofit organization called the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, which according to its Web site, aims to educate the public about flaws in the criminal justice system and to advocate for those wrongfully jailed as a result of those flaws.

41 Comments

WRAL.com welcomes your comments on this story. All comments are moderated prior to publication based on our posting guidelines. Please review them prior to posting and if your message is not approved.

VIEW ALL 41 COMMENTS

This story is closed for comments. Comments on WRAL.com news stories are accepted and moderated between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Latest Comments

mugostout, that is a pretty narrowminded comment. it doesn't mean he had any record before. he probably fit the profile and that was it. kinda like saying a 41 year old male with gray hair....vague. he was probably a good scape goat and better not to leave a crime unsolved to the uniforms

mom2threecld
February 20, 2007 11:01 p.m.

To "mugofstout", he could have been a man, with no criminal history, walking down the road and put in a line up and had the finger pointed at him. You can go to the NC department of corrections web site and put his name in under offender search. No matches found. So he didn't have a criminal record. God forbid you are ever charged with a crime that you didn't commit regardless of how old you are now.

have patience
February 20, 2007 5:11 p.m.

I am happy he was paid for his time. Not happy he served time.Mr Nifong were you the DA in this case.I hope you can put your life back together.God Bless.

cbhopper122859
February 20, 2007 4:51 p.m.

I am sure the money will go to good use.

narck9
February 20, 2007 3:45 p.m.

And just what was he innocent of? If he was pulled in by our honest, hardworking LEO's, he must have a had a record already. Stay out of the laws eye, and it will not be looking at you. i may be wrong, but I have lived forty one years with not one charge, seems to me he must have bea habitual offender to be looked at. And if he had got off on other charges, it was juast a matter of time until he was sent to prison for something.

mugofstout
February 20, 2007 1:24 p.m.